


It started with a proposition

by Emiyara



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 13:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12532968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emiyara/pseuds/Emiyara
Summary: A modern AU that explores how Chaol and Celaena found their way to each other.





	It started with a proposition

He was not expecting her to look like that. Calaena could read the shock in the subtle furrow of his brow as the guard led her into the conference room. He succeeded in schooling his features, but she had already registered his reaction and it filled her with endless pleasure. It was not an expression she was unfamiliar with- people tended to assume that she was much older and rougher than she actually was.

She smiled demurely, in a mocking dramatization of her innocent appearance, but he ignored her.

“I’ll take it from here, thanks,” he told the guard, gesturing for him to close the door behind him.

They were left alone in a poorly lit conference room in the basement of the Jefferson Correctional Institution. Humidity tugged at the paint on the wall and left the metal chairs with a layer of rust that groaned painfully when Calaena slid into one.

He did not sit, opting to stand at the head of the table, his arms clasped around the back of a chair. By Calaena’s guess, he looked to be in his late 20s: tall, lean, the works. She crossed her legs and wished she was dressed in anything but those terribly unflattering stripes.

He stalked over to her, and, sticking his hand out, said “Chaol Westfall.”

She shook it, “Calaena Sardothien,” she returned, then cheekily added, “Though I’m sure you knew that.”

He dropped her hand, shoving his own into his side pocket. She made a show of examining the nails on the hand he had released.

“Did I scratch you? Woops” she gave him a toothy grin and he stiffened, ears reddening.

“No,” his response was resolute, “Listen up, Miss Sardothein, I am here on business. Governor Havilliard has a proposition for you…”

God knew she was sick of titled men with propositions for her, but something about Chaol’s rigid manner and polite “Miss” had her aching for the real world. The one she had left a year ago when she was caught in a cyber-security scandal involving billions of dollars and a band of revolutionary terrorists- though, in her defense, they had only referred to themselves as “freedom fighters” in her presence. 

Deciding that beggars can’t be choosers, Calaena Sardothein looked up at Chaol Westfall and flashed her brilliant blue eyes at him. 

“A proposition?” she repeated. She knew he was not fooled by the blasé tone she had adopted.

…

“And that is my story,” Calaena leaned across the table and eyed the half-eaten lemon scone on Nehemia’s plate, prodding it with a finger, “Please?”

Nehemia pushed the plate towards her, “Of course,” she said dismissively, “the governor sent Chaol to recruit you?”

“uh-uh,” Caleana muttered, in the middle of chewing. She swallowed, “He sent Chaol to haul my ass outta jail,” she corrected, lowering her voice to avoid drawing the attention of any of the other customers. 

“Still,” Nehemia pressed, “sending Chaol is smart.”

“’cuz he’s so darned cute, right?” Calena winked at her friend, who sighed in irritation.

“No- because-“

Calaena gasped, “You don’t think Chaol is so darned cute?”

Nehemia rolled her eyes- she really had no patience for Calaena’s antics- “fine, he’s adorable, but that’s not the point here, the point is- what are you doing?”

Calaena was texting. Nehemia had a no-phones-while-with-friends policy that she strictly enforced and everyone complied with- except Calaena of course.

Calaena looked up from the screen of her iphone, batting her lashes innocently, “Who me? Nothing much – just texting Chaol that we both think he’s darned cute. He’s been having such self-esteem problems these days”

“And how will Dorian take that?”

Calaena shrugged, “like any hot six foot something who’s spent his life with Chaol. The man’s not blind, babe”

Nehemia rolled her darkly outlined eyes once more, “I should run to class,” she said, “I need to prep a few things beforehand”

“You’re a ridiculously good student,” Calaena bemoaned.

Nehemia gave her a tired smile, “I’ll see you at the office in the evening. The Governor wants to have coffee.”

Calaena wrinkled her nose in distaste, “Poor you,” she pouted.

“Poor me indeed,” Nehemia agreed, standing up and zipping her coat.

***

“You’re late”

“I know,” she chirped, leaning over to tie her shoelaces. Her coffee date with Nehemia had gone longer than she expected. By the time she had ran home to change into her running shoes, she was already ten minutes late.

“Why were you so late?”

“Didn’t you get my texts?”

He shrugged, “Your texts are incomprehensible half the time”

“What is so incomprehensible about my saying you’re so darned cute?” she teased, raising a hand to pinch his cheek, but he was quick to swat it away. 

He really was, she thought to herself, darned cute in his fitted grey sweatshirt and dark green running shorts, his thick chestnut hair covered in a Yankees baseball cap.

His mouth contorted into a scowl at her staring, “You ready?” he asked.

She nodded, giving her foot an experimental shake to check that she hadn’t tied the laces too tightly.

He stuck his earphones in his ears and with a nod, took off into a light jog. She smiled affectionately at his retreating figure, then caught up. She rarely listened to anything while running- preferring the cadence of her own thoughts- God knows she had enough to keep her occupied- but it was in these moments that she truly felt sadness at her relationship with Chaol. There they were, running along the beautiful banks of the ___ river in late autumn, and he was caught up in the music he was listening to and unaware that besides him, her ears and heart were painfully aware of his every gasp for air, the ruffle of the wind through his clothes, the puffs of dirt that rose with every strike of his foot on the balding grass and when- occasionally- he would turn to give her a half-grin, distracted, disinterested, she was glad she could blame her pounding heart and flushed expression on the physical exertion.

Stupid man, she thought, glaring at him just as he turned his head to motion to her to climb the stairs leading up the bridge before him. He looked confused at the look on her face, but she ignored his questioning look and raced up the stone stairs where the sounds of incoming traffic covered up the very thoughts racing through her mind.

***

“You’re really going to eat that for breakfast?” Chaol asked, incredulous.

Caleana gave him a dirty look, “I just ran 6 miles, mister, I’m entitled to a pain au chocolate, thank you very much”

“But it has zero nutritional value”

In response, Calaena took a huge bit of the flaky pastry. For good measure, she ran her tongue over her lips, lapping up the melted chocolate.

Across the table from her, Chaol was attempting to (and failing) to take a civilized stab at his nutritional breakfast burrito. Calaena loved the burritos herself and would have gladly gotten one, except for the fact that there was something particularly rewarding about watching Chaol squirm, especially on Monday mornings.

“For your information, Chaol, chocolate is filled with anti-oxidants and has numerous health benefits”

“If I had a dime for every time I heard that…”

She beamed.

“Forget it. Hurry up, we’re going to be late for work”

“Don’t worry. I always leave a change of clothes under my desk. Never know when you might need them,” she added, smiling sweetly.

**

On Thursday, they find Dorian at the cafe, his face buried in a paperback, emerging briefly to nip at a cinnamon bun and to take distracted sips of his iced coffee. They stand in line to order and watch him- Caleana in affectionate amusement and Chaol with poorly masked jealousy.

After Chaol placed his usual order and Calaena spends what feels like eternity trying to decide between a soup and a sandwich, they sneak up on the unsuspecting young man.

“Must feel great to be able to ditch work for reading whenever you feel like it,” Chaol says by way of greeting.

Dorian’s head shoots up from his book and he offers them a sheepish smile, “Hey Chaol, hey babe”

“Hey you,” Calaena coos, leaning down to give her boyfriend a kiss.

Dorian beams at her, “Eat your lunch with me?” he entreats.

Her eyes shift imperceptibly towards Chaol and Dorian adds, too hastily to be genuine, “you too, Chaol.”

Chaol grunts something about having to work at his desk and stalks off to pick up his order.

When he brings Calaena back her lunch she guiltily tells him, “I’m gonna stay with Dor”

He looks disapproving, “you’re behind in work”

“I’ll stay late tonight, I promise”

“Fine.”

“Stop being such a slave-driver, Chaol, let her stay,” Dorian smiles, but there is an unmistakable hint of authority in his voice.

“Fine” Chaol repeats, offering them a very stiff, pained smile, “I’ll see you later, then”

Calaena smiles weakly, “See ya,” she says, sliding into the seat across from Dorian who promptly nudges her foot with his own and says, “Cheer up, blondie.”

She laughs, “Don’t call me that,” she chides, but Dorian notices that her eyes are not exactly on his face, but looking beyond his shoulders, through the café’s glass front, at the black-clad figure rushing to jay-walk towards their office building. A sports car skids to a stop a few feet away from him, honking, and Caleana curses out loud.

Dorian gives her a confused look, “You okay?”

She gives the wrong answer, “Stupid Chaol almost got run over”

“Daily occurrence,” Dorian quips dismissively, but turns around to take a look nonetheless, “well that and running people over. He’s a terrible driver.”

When he turns back to ask Calaena if she wants to check out a newly opened Brazilian restaurant tomorrow night, he finds her glued to her phone, thumbs flying across the screen. After a few minutes, she looks up with a grin and says, “Chaol says he always has the right of way,” she rolls her eyes, but it’s too affectionate for Dorian’s liking.

He doesn’t ask her to dinner. Instead, he starts telling her about the book he’s reading and he’s slightly mollified when she slides her phone away, screen down and picks up her soup spoon. 

**

She asks him to come shopping with her. It’s after she and Dorian break up and he’s seen both sides of the fallout. Dorian sulks in bars and bookshops and on his guitar, reminding Chaol greatly of a hung-over Victorian dandy- all sunken eyes, long hair and flowy fabrics. Chaol hasn’t seen his friend suffer quite so profoundly from a breakup since Rose.

With Calaena, it’s different. She is a relentless ball of energy- gregarious and downright tiring. For an entire week, she wakes him up at dawn to run with her and on weekends, she invades his free time with impromptu hiking trips and laser tag games. He finds it hard to refuse her anything. But, after a week of rock-climbing with Calaena and poetry readings with Dorian, Chaol finds himself desperate for a night alone.

And yet, he gamely tags along and obligingly chides her for spending a good chunk of her paycheck on shoes.

“Manolos,” she corrects, caressing the shoes adoringly.

“Rent,” he insists, eliciting a giggle.

She straps them on with care. They are thin heeled and insubstantial, but not as frightening as some of the other shoes he’s seen her in. She takes a walk around the racks, swinging her hips dramatically before coming to a stop in front of him.

“Well?” she asks.

“Pretty,” he shrugs.

She frowns and he tries again, “Really cool.”

From the eye-roll, he knows it’s not what he was supposed to say. But before he can make a third attempt (he was going to say “fashionable” this time), her ankle gives out and she stumbles forward. Automatically, he reaches out and steadies her by the forearms. He is distinctly aware of how his hand clasps around the cool skin of her arm and how her chunky metal bracelets cut into his fingers. They are both quiet for a moment, eyes not meeting before Calaena lets out a shaky laugh.

“I’ll wear them at your birthday party”

“I’m not having a birthday party,” he is quick to retort and they are back to where they were. He releases her arms and makes a comment about dangerous her jewelry is. She is distracted by her new shoes, then by a new dress (also insubstantial and fire-engine red), then by trying on different lipsticks at Sephora. When they walk by a Game Stop, she asks him if he’d like to go in, but he walks on, incredulous.

She only pauses her mad shopping spree for lunch, when she shamelessly asks him to pay for her gyro sandwich (“you’re the guy,” she reasons, “plus, you’re technically my boss.”) She eats quickly and strums her freshly painted fingernails (courtesy of Sephora) against the plastic table in dramatic impatience as he eats.

After she spends nearly $200 on underwear (by then he is ready to pay her double to let him stand outside), she takes pity on him and asks if he’d like to go into a bookstore. They are separated in the bookstore as Calaena has developed a recent interest in science fiction and he is exploring the books on the bestseller shelf. When they meet up, she has four paperbacks and a hardcover and nothing has caught his interest yet.

“You’re too picky,” she chides as she points to a book by a South American novelist, “you’d like this.”

“Hmmmm,” he says noncommittally, as he scans the back, “I’m not sure.”

She groans and grabs the book, “Here, it’ll be my gift to you.”

He carries his gift and over half a dozen other shopping bags to his car. When he tries to deposit the items into his trunk, she protests the “bad treatment” of her shoes and carries them, carrier bag and all in her lap all the way back to her apartment.

 

**

No one misses the delicate silver ring on Calaena’s finger. It has a celtic design and a dark purple stone in the center.

Nehemia catches her friend starting at it on occasion and teases her about the darned cute boss. Dorian says its pretty and asks- suspiciously- where she got it from:

“A souvenir from the Christmas party- they gave them out as favors to all of the women”

“But you didn’t attend”

“Nemi did.”

Chaol keeps expecting a day to come when she is not wearing the ring. He knows there are two types of women in the world: women who change their accessories every day and women who always wear the same piece of jewelry and Calaena has always been of the former. And yet, the ring adorns her finger on their morning runs and through their late evenings at work. It is on her finger as she leafs through a novel or stirs creamer into her morning coffee. He sees it on her finger when she draws her apartment door open, at 6 am, and sleepily tells him she’ll be ready in five minutes.

Much later, when they are well-established and huddled together underneath her covers, he makes to remove it, saying, “I want to get you something much nicer.” He says the words meaningfully and he is sure she comprehends.

“No,” she pulls her hand away from his, “I love my ring,” she asserts, her hand gently cradling his left cheek, the cool metal of the ring strikingly different from the warmth of her soft hands.

**

It’s Friday night and he’s finally convinced her that they didn’t have to go out to have fun. Instead, they’re lounging on Chaol’s sumptuous leather couch. Calaena’s back is against the arm rest and her feet are in Chaol’s lap. They’re both dressed messily- Calaena more so in her athletic shorts, knee-high socks, and baggy tee shirt. Chaol is in company-issue sweats, his bare feet propped against a stack of books on his coffee table.

“Pass the popcorn,” he instructs and she complies, both not taking their eyes off the television screen, where Friends has been streaming on Netflix for the past three hours.

“Who would you date, Rachel, Monica or Phoebe?” Calaena suddenly asks.

When he doesn’t answer, she prods his ribs with her foot.

“What?” he demands, grabbing her foot and moving it back into his lap.

She repeats the question.

He doesn’t hesitate, “Rachel,” he says.

“’cuz she’s the prettiest?” she inquires.

“Because she’s the sanest,” he corrects.

“Oh,” Calaena smirks, “so you like blondes?” she attempts to wiggle her foot free, but he’s holding it tightly.

“Who would you date?” he asks evasively.

“Monica”

“Of the guys,” he groans.

“Chandler”

“Really?”

“Absolutely!” she nods eagerly, with the air of someone having given much thought to the matter at hand, “he’s funny, sweet, loyal- really it’s all I’d want in a guy”

“Not looks?”

“Nah,” she simpers, “I’m pretty enough for the two of us.”

**

The last time Calaena had been this nervous was on the eve of her arrest. Ironically, she exhibited the same symptoms both times: extreme nausea and an internal verbal spar that left her with a headache. Whereas last time she had been debating the merits of taking up Hamel’s offer of a new passport and an extended vacation in Venezuela, on this occasion she was vacillating between three different outfits and a desire to plead a headache and get out of the whole evening.

Finally deciding that a) she could not do that to Chaol on his birthday and b) she had already put in a lot of time and money into preparing the dinner, she decided to ultimately pretend to forget what had almost transpired between them the night before. The night of her parents’ accident, for God’s sake.

Stop it. She chastised herself and took a deep, unsteady breath, then opened up her closet violently, the doors protesting against the hinges. All three outfits were new, but since she had already told Chaol to dress nicely, she selected the dressiest one for herself. It was a high-waisted bluish-white skirt with a structured matching short-sleeve shirt that bared the band of skin between her breasts and stomach. The collar of the shirt was encrusted with large glass beads. She combed her hair up into a neat chignon, donned a sparkling headband, and examined herself critically in the mirror for a few minutes.

Then she huffed to herself, feeling positively insipid. She looked great- more than great- and definitely good enough for Chaol, who, she was sure, was going to wear his nice grey shirt with his one nice tie and his fancy oxfords that Dorian had forced him to buy.

But, just in case, she applied another layer of lipstick and ran some mascara through her lashes. She wore no jewelry except for the ring he had given her- which was starting to look a bit plain. She tried on a pair of earrings then took them out. She started to put on eyeshadow but then changed her mind. She examined her legs- thinking maybe another quick shave- but really- she was wearing nude pantyhose and she had shaved that morning- she wasn’t a gorilla. She shook her head and took another breath, then slipped into her strappy blue heels. This was getting ridiculous. She snapped a picture of her reflection and texted it to Nehemia who promptly responded “Hot” with an uncharacteristic amount of accompanying emojis. She texted the picture to Philippa who was even faster at responding (“hun you look gorgeous”.) Satisfied with the amount of compliments she was receiving from a clearly biased sample, she grabbed her coat and handbag and then back-tracked to quickly dab some perfume on her wrists and neck.

Chaol was waiting for her at the entrance of her building. As she had suspected, he was wearing his nice grey button-down and purple plaid tie with one of his nicer work slacks. Upon closer inspection, it looked like he had combed his hair as well. 

“Happy Birthday,” she said by way of greeting.

He smiled, his eyes travelling across her frame before being dragged up to meet her eyes, “Do I even want to know where you’re taking me?”

She grinned mischievously, “You’re going to want to deny tonight in any future interrogation”

He raised his brows wordlessly.

She held out her palm, “keys.”

With an endearingly lopsided grin, he dug into his pocket and deposited his keychain in her outstretched palm.

Her fingers closed over the keys eagerly and she shuttled past him, as fast as her heels could take her, “C’mon.”

He trailed behind her and slid into the passenger seat, “So where exactly are we going?”

“Dinner,” she responded innocently.

The Avery was one of those new apartment buildings with elevators opening up in people’s foyers, stainless steel kitchens, a uniformed door man and a well-groomed roof garden. It was the latter that Calaena was interested in. She parked Chaol’s car outside the building and put enough quarters in the meter to guarantee them a good four hours. At the door to the building, she punched in the number to Archer’s apartment and led Chaol through the sleek glass doors to one of the elevators. They took the elevator past the 12th floor and walked out into the greenhouse of the roof garden- a glass enclosed, heated enclosure filled with verdant plants and wicker furnishings. On the table, the staff from the Willows had laid out a full-course meal with a small tray to the side holding a bottle of champagne and an elegant chocolate mousse cake with happy birthday candles already in place.

“Wow,” breathed Chaol, taking it all in, “this is incredible,” he said with such sincerity and emotion that Calaena had to lower her head, embarrassed.

“Thank you,” he added, striding closer to her and pulling her hands into his, “this must have taken you so much time”

“Happy Birthday,” Calaena said, feeling a little lame and very much embarrassed, “come eat before the food gets cold”

He grinned, taking a look around the greenhouse then pulled her chair out for her with a gallant, “Ladies first”

She giggled at his gesture and let him push her chair in for her before taking a seat opposite of her, still turning his head around to admire the setting and the silhouette of the city under the setting sun behind the glass walls.

 

** Later **

“You’d leave the governor’s campaign?” Calaena whispered, disbelieving what she was hearing.

“I don’t really believe in his mission anymore,” he responds.

They are standing side by side on the balcony. Before them, the city unravels like a string of crystals against the satin back drop of the dark night. Overhead, a half-moon provides dim lighting, enough for Calaena to see that Chaol looks determined.

“If you need to leave, let me come with you,” he tells her.

She needs to leave. She needs to find a way to leave the governor without being sent back to jail again. She doesn’t want to stay long enough to see him be President- or worse yet- to make him President.

“You want to come with me?” she questions, “really?”


End file.
